OK, so I predicted that "Selma" would win the Best Picture award, not because it was any good, but because the other films -- all seven of them -- would split enough of the votes that Al Sharpton could guilt a plurality into voting for it. I don't know the final voting -- will we ever? -- but I'm guessing that on sheer quality, "Selma" got more votes than it deserved. Just not enough, so I was wrong.
This past weekend, to enhance our ability to appreciate the awards themselves, the missus and I sat down in our living room and watched through three of the nominated films, which included a number of the nominated performances for acting in lead and supporting roles.
Boy, for all the chest-thumping done at the Oscars about what a wonderful medium cinema is, and how wonderful the stories are, and what great actors the nominees were, the movies sure were a letdown. We watched three of what were supposed to be the best -- "Birdman", "Boyhood" and "The Theory of Everything".
I will say that the performance by Eddie Redmayne as Stephen Hawking was pretty remarkable, and I did wake up from the awards show (God, the show is interminable) in time to see that he had won Best Lead Actor and was happy for that. The movie itself was very good but sub-memorable; the performances of its two leads (Felicity Jones the other, as Hawking's ex-wife Jane) were excellent and appreciated. The movie itself was not thought a candidate to win this year, nor would it in most years.
It was, however, quite disillusioning to go through watching Birdman and Boyhood, the two most hyped candidates to win, because they certainly were not better pictures.
"Boyhood" is the very long epic whose claim to fame is that it was filmed over twelve years, the better to show the aging of its lead child (and, for that matter, everyone else) from about age six to eighteen or so. That effect was central to the premise, in contrast with other films which cover a long period and replace young children with different actors for later years.
Unfortunately, the effect was more compelling than the storyline; mother gets married/divorced three times, boy grows into a dull, introspective, boring and otherwise uninteresting teenager who likes photography, and ... and ... I'm not sure what else. There's no real plot going on to be resolved. It would have been much different had the creators written the whole script ahead of time -- gee, I wish they had; the movie came across as if they met for a few weeks each summer to film and made it up as they went along.
Moreover, the performances were generally uninspired as well. Ethan Hawke as the first husband and the children's father was decent, but nominated for a Supporting Actor award (he didn't win) anyway. Having somehow gotten more votes than fellow nominee Meryl Streep (Who ever beats Meryl Streep?), Patricia Arquette did win as Supporting Actress as the mother, though other than aging twelve years, it's difficult to pin down anything compelling about her performance.
Miss Arquette did take the occasion of the award to make a passionate speech for equality for women, to which I say "sure"; the very first step in that equality should be to give just one award for Best Actor and just delete all this male/female distinction. Bye, bye Miss Arquette's 2015 Oscar.
The other 2-3 hours we won't get back was watching "Birdman", the story of a former movie superhero actor trying to create a new version of a play on Broadway. OK, it wasn't bad, and the plot was easier to follow ... OK, no, that one was hard to follow, too. They could have taken the volume level of the incessant background drumming down by 2/3, so we could hear the dialogue and maybe follow the plot, but hey, that's 2015 cinema.
Michael Keaton was the actor, and again, he was very good. The movie itself, ahhhh, not so much -- no characters to sympathize with a great deal, most of the characters with depressing lives -- and not the good kind of cinematic depressing lives that make you feel better about yourself, either. It's called a "dark comedy", but that, to me, means one that you laugh at uncomfortably, schadenfreude, that sort of thing. You'll have to point the laugh lines out to me; I would never use the term "comedy" of any shade on this one. Overall, it was just too much frigging work to watch the film, and I work during the week.
It has been close to, well, ever since last I watched more than one nominated film before the awards are presented. I just have to say that whatever scale is used these days to determine what constitutes a great movie, wow, the standard is amazingly low. They're good, sure, but when I finish seeing a film that's up for an Oscar I should feel l just saw an Oscar-worthy film.
The impression I get is that the people making movies these days are only making them to satisfy their own construct of what art is, while my interest is in being entertained, moved or whatever reaction I'm supposed to get based on the subject matter. When my disbelief is not suspended, but remains firmly intact while I try to figure out what the heck is going on, the film has failed me.
Ahhhhh, it was only six bucks.
Copyright 2015 by Robert Sutton
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